How Much Does It Cost to Make an Mobile App?

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In the present era, apps have become something you can’t imagine a smooth life without. Applications by being there for every other thing, have made people so much dependent on them that the market of apps have seen a drastic change over short period abundance growth. This isn’t the end though; mobile app industry has a long way to go. Now let’s discuss the dooming question that comes forth whenever we think of developing an app or even try to understand the technology behind them.

How much does an app cost?

App costing is an addition of development and Designing cost. You can get an idea about the app costing only after going through the basics relating to apps. Let us first tell you about what goes into building an app:

Back to Basics

Here are some thoughts you would want to think through before working on building your app:

App design is not a single stroke; it is a package of-

Idea

Layout

Strategy

Design

This is what the normal procedure of app designing includes:

Idea-

When you make up your mind for an app, the very first thing that you should come up with is an idea. You must have a striking idea in your mind about how your app will lure people, make them go nuts for it. Decide a target audience and give your best shot. If your app is complicated, it will be more expensive than simpler apps, but its launch brings a handsome return on investment. The simpler the app, the lesser it will cost.

Layout –

A good app must have an impressive layout for which you need to be part of every single detail of your app. You must have a clear idea of how different parts of an app interact with each other. The more you explore, the more ideas will open up and you will end up with a matchless app. Functionality of an app matters.

Strategy- Without a smart strategy, you can’t come up with a good app. Strategize what all you want to do with the upcoming app, and your expectations from it. Then, work on making it serve the needs of users.

Design- Design can make or break your app. Make sure you offer a decent design loaded with a superb icon, splash screens, good tab icons, and numerous other assets required to be linked together, making your app anybody’s first choice.

Ready to win hearts- When everything is done, the developer introduces the app to the world by bringing it on the store. The developer makes an account of the app on the store and from there anybody can download the app. The app becomes live once on store.

And now that you are clear about what you want, let’s follow through the steps of actual work that goes into building an app:

• Client Requirement – In this stage we study what the client wants us to come up with. We ask them about the different features and stuff they expect in the application. After researching on their requirements, we create a clear picture about what all our work is going to focus on.
This step take around a day or two, prior to reaching to an end

• Prototyping – At this stage we work on the basics of the apps. It determines what all the app is going to offer to users.

• Wireframe – Here comes the work floor, wherein the team decides the appearance of the app, its logs, colour combination, functional windows. By the end of this step, we come up with a replica of the app. We create a replica either on a paper or using adobe.

Once the wireframe gets an approval, then comes the next big stage of app designing. One the basics of the application are clear; the designer is being told about the expectations from the app that is under construction. This stage marks the entry of the designers, who place a major part in app development.

• Designing – Designing is the key to near perfect app, the better the design the better is the app. We don’t work on what our competitors are doing, instead of imitating what others do, we focus on what the client seeks, work on it, explore and finally serves the client with the matchless. Designing further has a deeper part:

Work flow- In the work flow Part the team decides what will happen when an user clicks on a particular button, whether another tab would open up or a pop up would appear. In this stage, the team decides step wise division regarding ever single click leading to next page or pop up. By the end of this stage the team has an exact picture in hand about all the functions of the app. There would a full on transparency about click on this get this; click on that get that, stuff.

Designing isn’t a work of an individual, it demands a team of members, including designers who will visualize what all is meant to be transformed into the product; Product manager who supervises the work of every member of the app development.

• Development – The stage of developing an app is all code based. This the part where most the heavy work and hours are put in. This process is all about writing the actual code to build the app and it is tested bit by bit along with development.

• Testing – In this stage, the team conducts alpha testing of the app. This additional testing is generally carried out for Commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS). Once this testing gets over, beta testing is done. This the stage where app goes through multiple changes depending on user experiencing. In other words, this is the stage where we consider the existing feature and make it better. We work on enhancing the quality, outcome of the present features of the app to offer better results. .

• Launch – This is the stage you have been working towards and it has finally come!! Once everything has been finalized, the application receives the final touches. Your app is finished, tested and ready to launch. The process of publishing your app to the app store can sometimes take couple of weeks.

Costing

How much does an app cost?

App costing depends on several factors, including features, platform, and complexity. If you are looking for apps with back-end servers, they would cost more in nearly all the cases. App developing cost differs notably depending on whom you are hiring for it- a freelancer, offshore development team or an agency.

Furthermore, the costing of apps depends on the type of apps you are developing. With the increase in the complexity of the app, the costing goes up.

There are three kinds of apps-

Simple Apps – Simple apps don’t demand a lot of things. If you are self-sufficient in a good graphic making software, you can easily offer a simple app at a quite reasonable cost. Further if you want to add in extra things in simple apps, including social media integration, the cost will increase. The hourly costing goes same at the rate of $35-50. The price ranging anywhere from $10K – $20K.Approximate Time: 600 hrs

Intermediary Apps- These apps don’t belong to simple apps nor to complex apps, they lie in between. They seem to be quite simple but if you go in depth there are a lot more functions that are often overlooked. The hourly rate ranges $45-80. The price ranging anywhere from $30K – $50K.Approximate Time: 900 hrs

Complex Apps – Complex apps include a lot many features in comparison to simple apps and are very heavy. In such apps framework matters a lot. The hourly rate is $50-120. The price ranging anywhere from $50K – $120K. Such apps are packed with custom animations which make them quite costly.Approximate Time: 1000 + hrs

The market is full of apps, some of which are IOS based, some are Android based, and a lot of apps are based on Web, such as Microsoft app, Facebook application. Web apps includes continuous input of the users. App development has been here for couple of years, but it’s just starting.